Posts Tagged ‘98.5’

Oh, you are a sucker. Well, then be my guest – pay $48 for a number. And actually, and you’ll enjoy this, sucker, it’s already too late to get a good deal on registration for 2013. Prices be higher now.

Most people who aren’t professional runners don’t pay and here’s a good reason not to pay:

2. You don’t get a refund even if the Philip Anschutz people decide to cancel the race – you agreed to that in the oppressive agreement you made on the Bay to Breakers website when you signed up: “…all Race entry fees are non-refundable, even if Race is cancelled…” See after the jump for details on that.

3. Most other participants don’t pay, so why should you? Take a look right here, this is early on during the first hour of the 2012 event – how many registrants can you spot?

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I’ll tell you, I see just one soul with a “racing” bib. Do you think any of these people cared about getting a “racing” time that shows how long it took them to run the BtoB? Do you think any of them were arrested by the SFPD? Do you think any of them were ejected from the “race” course by “race” organizers? I don’t.

Those were just Three Reasons Why You Were Foolish to Have Registered for the Bay to Breakers.

Sucker!

Often identified as “Christian billionaire Phil Anschutz”,[26] he is a Republican donor who supported George W. Bush‘s administration. He has been an active patron of a number of religious and conservative causes:

Helped fund Colorado‘s 1992 Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn local and state laws that prohibit discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation but was invalidated by Romer v. Evans after it passed.[19]

Contributed $70,000 in 2003 to the Discovery Institute, to specifically support the work of telecom guru George Gilder but not matters related to intelligent design. That fact was validated by Discovery President Bruce Chapman in a letter-to-the-editor to the Rocky Mounatain News, “Anschutz never gave that program a nickel,”[27]

Now I’ll tell you, I didn’t register for the 101st running of the Bay to Breakers, so that means I haven’t signed away my right to ever in my life “attack, embarrass or disparage” San Francisco’s littlest TV news station, KRON-TV.* Therefore, I have the freedom to ask, “What the hell, KRON? You start broadcasting the race at 8:00 AM after all the winners have crossed the finish line?”

Is this the smallest BtoB in recent memory? Seems that way. The past week the Philip Anschutz people couldn’t even give away registrations. Oh well.

LinkedIn won, once again, in the Centipede category:

(The Philip Anschutz people used to call this category “Human Centipede,” with hilarious results.)

Back in the day, there were hundreds of thousands of people out there on Bay to Breakers Day, and no fences, and everything seemed to work out. But in this day, of uptight rich white NIMBYs living in the Western Addition and Hayes Valley and district elections affecting the behavior of San Francisco Supervisors, things are different. OK.

OK fine.

*It’s true. It’s in the waiver you assented to – you can’t “attack, embarrass or disparage” any Sponsor and KRON’s a Sponsor so there you go.

“More than ever, City officials and race organizers are serious about keeping the race free from alcohol abuse and nuisance behavior.”

SO THIS IS THE STANDARD LINE FROM SFGOV-APPROVED MEDIA FLACK DAVID PERRY, WHO GETS PAID TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO ATTEMPT TO PROMOTE WHATEVER IT IS THAT SFGOV WANTS PROMOTED. LIKE, “THERE’S NO HALLOWEEN IN THE CASTRO, WE’RE SERIOUS.” FOR THE BAY TO BREAKERS IT’S BASICALLY, “NO ALCOHOL, WE”RE SERIOUS.” AND THEN DAVID PERRY PUTS UP A RECYCLED, HALF-ASSED WEBSITE. (ALL HIS SITES LOOK THE SAME, COMPLETE WITH THE SEAL OF SAN FRANCISCO FOR COLOR OF AUTHORITY.)

ANYWAY, HERE’S THE WEBSITE THAT DAVID PERRY GETS PAID FOR WHETHER ANYBODY LOOKS AT IT OR NOT. NOTE THAT DAVID PERRY STEALS PHOTOGRAPHS TO DECORATE HIS WEBSITES. FOR EXAMPLE, FIND THE SHOT THAT LOOKS PROFESSIONAL AND THAT’LL BE THE ONE THAT DAVID PERRY REPEATEDLY USES “COMMERCIALLY.” DO YOU HAVE A LICENSE, DAVID PERRY? NO YOU DO NOT. IS THAT HOW YOU ROLL, DAVID PERRY? YES IT IS. MOVING ON…

“Bay to Breakers has always been a blast for everyone,” said San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr.

A BLAST? WOW, YOU’RE THE COOLEST POLICE CHIEF EVER, GREG SUHR!

“Last year was no different, with the singular exception of no alcohol allowed. In some years past, because alcohol was allowed, there was a negative impact of our neighborhoods and we don’t want to see that repeated. That said, we hope that everyone will come and have a great time again, absent any alcohol.”

UM, ARE YOU SAYING ALCOHOL WAS OFFICIALLY “ALLOWED” AT THE BAY TO BREAKERS TWO YEARS AGO? NO IT WAS NOT. SO WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT GREG SUHR? YOU SEEM OUT OF TOUCH ON THIS ISSUE.

NOW, HERE’S WHAT THE SFPD WANTS YOU TO DO WITH YOUR ALCOHOL AT THE BAY TO BREAKERS. IT’S A DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL POLICY:

IT’S AS SIMPLE AS THAT. THE SFPD WANTS YOU TO DRINK YOUR ALCOHOL IN A NON-OBVIOUS WAY AT THE BAY TO BREAKERS. IF YOU WALK THE COURSE HOLDING A CAN OF BUD, THE SFPD MIGHT MAKE YOU POUR IT OUT, VERY POSSIBLY. BUT IF YOU TRANSFER YOUR STUFF TO ANOTHER CONTAINER AS THE SFPD WANTS YOU TO DO, THEN YOU’LL BE FINE.

THAT’S WHAT THEY MEAN WHEN THEY SAY, “NO ALCOHOL ALLOWED”

WHAT THE SFPD WANTS TO DO AT THE BAY TO BREAKERS, FUNDAMENTALLY, IS TO LOOK AT GIRLS, TALK TO GIRLS, AND OTHERWISE INTERACT WITH GIRLS:

ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY

THUSLY:

BUT IF YOU CAUSE TROUBLE, BY GETTING IN A FIGHT OR SOMETHING, THEY’LL HAUL YOU OFF, SIMPLE AS THAT.

To emphasize the point, a special campaign website is active at www.baytobreakers100.com with public transit information, rules and regulations, video PSAs and links to social media sites stressing this year’s campaign.

WHAT WOULD THE WORLD DO WITHOUT YOUR USELESS EFFORTS?

NOW, THE CITY FAMILY IS DOING ITS BEST TO PROMOTE THE CANDIDACY OF “RUN ED RUN” PROMOTER CHRISTINA OLAGUE, WHO’S PROBABLY SAN FRANCISCO’S LEAST INTELLIGENT SUPERVISOR NOW THAT MICHELA ALIOTO-PIER IS GONE. CHRISTINA IS THE REPUBLICAN-APPROVED SAN FRANCISCO PROGRESSIVE, SO SHE’S ALLOWED TO MOUTH OFF ON HER PET ISSUES, BUT SHE CAN BE COUNTED ON TO SUPPORT REPUBLICAN-SUPPORTED MAYOR ED LEE WHEN HE WANTS HER TO SUPPORT HIM. YOU KNOW, WHEN IT COUNTS. ANYWAY, HERE SHE IS SAYING, “VOTE FOR ME, VOTE FOR ME,” IN SO MANY WORDS:

“This year, will be my first Bay to Breakers as Supervisor for District 5 and I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of it and share this great event with our community,” said District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague. “Coming off of the successes of last year, I am confident that this race will only continue to improve as it enters into its second century here in the Bay Area. Last year, we saw a very different Bay to Breakers than in year’s prior. The new rules implemented by race organizers clearly made a difference and the sold out race was said to be a success by city officials, neighborhoods, media, and the organizers themselves. We expect the same result of our participants this year.”

SO LAST YEAR’S RUNNING WAS A SUCCESS, OFFICIALLY? WELL THAT’S NEWS TO ME. CONSIDER LAST YEAR’S EVENT A BASELINE, IF YOU WANT. BUT LAST YEAR, IN FACT, EVERYBODY WAS DRINKING, THERE WERE HUGE HOUSE PARTIES ON FELL STREET, DPW’S STREET REOPENING SCHEDULE WAS A COMPLETE JOKE, MOST OF THE PARTICIPANTS DIDN’T REGISTER AND YADAYADAYADA. (AND I’LL NOTE THAT THIS YEAR’S RACE IS NOT A SELL-OUT, NOT EVEN CLOSE.)

ALL RIGHT, MAYBE THAT’S WHY PEOPLE DON’T TALK ABOUT THE BAY TO BREAKERS VERY MUCH ANYMORE, MAYBE PEOPLE THINK IT’S FINE THE WAY IT IS. OF COURSE TICKET SALES ARE WAY DOWN FROM LAST YEAR AND TICKET PRICES ARE UP AND THIS EVENT IS WAY SMALLER THAN IT WAS IN YEARS PAST, BUT THE CITY FAMILY IS COOL WITH THE B2B, APPARENTLY.

OK, WELL, IF OUR CITY FAMILY CAN DEAL WITH THE WAY THE BAY TO BREAKERS IS NOW, THEN SO CAN I.

I still haven’t heard word one about the Bay to Breakers this year. It’s uncanny.

So let’s see, the BtoB people are freaking out now about all the unsold registrations they’re trying to unload. They just had a Cinco de Mayo sale (I’m seriously) and now they’re offering a Mother’s Day special for discount sub-$50 registration. But past participants aren’t biting because even at the high price of $48(!) YOU DON”T GET A T-SHIRT! That’s a new thing, I suppose, since those T’s were famous back in the day.

Don’t click to expand and don’t print this out on your color inkjet printer, you know, in portrait mode.

But if you want to give money to Colorado “Christian Billionaire” Philip Anschutz, then go right ahead and register, I don’t care. He gives his money to support Prop 8 and fight the concept of evolution so if you want to help him with that, go right ahead and give him your money by registering for the B to B.

Anyway, it’s hard to believe that this historic race is coming up in nine days and yet nobody’s talking about it.

“$48 for a timed race and $2 medal: no t-shirt! $10 more for them mailing the bib to us? No transit included with the registration! Seriously, at $58 for 50,000 people, I need to whack someone so I can run this thing. I appreciate it’s a logistics challenge, but it ain’t rocket science.”

“don’t forget the $6 processing fee!”

“I’m officially retiring from B@B after 25 years. To expensive and no longer fun anymore”

“Charging for the t-shirt! This is REALLY sick. I’ve run this race 17 times, and any number of other races. Charging EXTRA for the t-shirt when that’s the real medal any runner wants (aside from a good time)? This race is obviously being run by a non-runner with a financial agenda in mind, NOT with the reverance the Breakers has to the history of this city and to the runners who love it. IF I register this year, it will be my last time as a swan song memory. You folks are giving this race a bad name.

“I hope you’re paying attention to all the comments on your web site, Facebook and elsewhere regarding the charges and changes you people are making. You’re killing a great race which USED to be the biggest block party in the country, along with TAC sanction. Veterans like me and many others are just not into what you’re doing. Please don’t tell me about all the charges and costs. Somebody’s making bucks on this and it’s very, very sad. After running it 17 times, this, my 18th time, will, without doubt, be my last. I will be coming up from L.A. for is as I have for the last 5 runs. Before that, I lived in the Bay Area and ran it 12 years in a row. What you’re calling a party at the end is a joke, and charging for t-shirts is obscene. By the way, I’m not running with a cane, and do hope to finish under 1 hour. I run for time and all the joy that USED to come with the party afterwards in the polo fields. Music, vendors, a place to chill and spread out afterwards. You probably haven’t been around long enough to realize that even having a place to find your friends in the bleachers by alphabet made this sooo special. Now, it’s just another race put on by some big corporate sponsor who really could give a crap about what is was to the people running, and to the city of San Francisco. Shame on you.

“I miss the days when the SF Examiner was the race sponsor. Ever since Zazzle took over this race, they’ve diminished it. The entry fees are now OUTRAGEOUS and what race sponsor does NOT include a t-shirt in their fees? That’s just BS! They no longer allow floats and they’ve moved the starting time up to 7:00am which is BRUTAL for those of us, like me, down in the south bay. This has always been my favorite race of the year and sadly, they are really ruining it. Shame on you Zazzle! Some things are about tradition….not money!

“Oh you can get a t-shirt but you have to register at the “Plus” level with is $72 or the “Premium” level which is $89.50!! That doesn’t even include the additional fees for Muni to get you to or from the starting/finish line or the added fees to have your packet mailed to you or the processing fees. I’ve never had to pay this much for a 12k race entry in my life. It used to be $35 and you got a t-shirt. Last year they changed the starting time to 7:00am so we had to leave SJ by 5:00am which was ridiculous. They never used to have a limit on entries and now it’s cutoff at 50,000 (years ago there were more than 80,000 entries) and they eliminated a lot of traditional things (like the floats). That’s part of what made it so whacky and fun! All they care about now is $$. They’re just ruining the tradition of this race and robbing people blind now.

“I think it’s really sad what they’re doing to this 101 year old iconic race. My husband, my friend, & I have been doing this event for almost 30 years together. Now they’ve taken all of the fun, camaraderie, family togetherness (ie: no running strollers so no young families, no dogs so no companions, not to mention no T-shirt with our registration).. out of it.(I don’t care about no alcohol) Next they’ll say no walking, so no old fogies, like our gang Booooooooooo!

“That’s it. Priced me right out of this one. Between hotel, meals, transportation and no t-shirt with basic registration and starting at 7am again this is not fun. $57 times 50000 is $2.85million. Really?”

“I’ve been running this since 1996. I can’t believe that costs have gone up and only by paying even more one gets a tshirt. I’m going to have think about this. I just ran the Oakland Running Festival today. Well organized, friendly, low corporate footprint, and depending on which race you ran you got a specific shirt. You guys are losing the spirit in more ways than one.”

Bay to Breakers was going fine for almost a century, so what went wrong?

Now I’ll tell you, in years past, there were all kinds of controversies regarding this annual tradition. But so far in 2012 I haven’t heard word one in the media about this event. That’s a big green light for you and your friends to come on down this year. The thing that’s changed lately is that you can’t have parade floats to push around anymore. That’s it.

But whatever you do, don’t register. All that does is send money to some hard-core right winger Prop 8 supporting billionaire fitness nut who “bought” this event because he liked participating in it. No, just show up ready to par-TAY.

Oh, and remember, don’t let anybody in some T-shirt push you around. The only people who you need to listen to are in the SFPD, pretty much.

And me – I’ve lived on Fell Street for donkey’s years and I, personally, am inviting you and your cousins and your frat and/or sorority to come on down.

This semi-official “Neighborhood Ambassador” of the 100th running of the Bay to Breakers event somehow got the idea that she should start shutting down the annual after-party on Fell Street all by herself.

She spent a while hectoring these street youth until one of them proffered his hand for a high-five good-bye. (You see, he was too polite just to walk away during the haranguing session.) She left him hanging for a bit with his hand fixed in the air but eventually she responded in kind and then the kids, the Future of America, the people who were doing nothing wrong, felt free to walk away without appearing to be too disrespectful.

The scene on Fell – what happens when you try to end an afternoon party at lunchtime:

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Some of the “Ambassadors” felt it was their job to prevent people from walking across the Panhandle to get to the other side, you know, the same way residents of Fell Street do the other 364 days of the year, However, the citizens of SF mostly managed to ignore these brownshirts.

“If they’re open containers we pour it out,” said an officer who declined to give his name. “If they’re closed we leave them alone. If they’re drunk we take them to the tank, if they fight we arrest them.”

This comports exactly with what I’ve seen. So that’s what you should keep in mind when you show up for the street party in 2012

Now, check it, the cops have already passed through and DPW is still cleaning up Fell Street, but, the party rages on past 1:00 PM:

Some people, like the Yes on Prop 8 crew, actually like volunteering for “Christian Billionaire” Philip Anschutz but others aren’t cut out for it.

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Boy, won’t these souvenuir T-shirts help them to remember all the good times they’re not having by trying to rat out people actually having a good time?

No, not actually.

And the “private security,” the ones wearing (I presume) City-issued green and orange safety vests, well, some of them are aging homeless people and others are “at-risk” youth, who feel quite free to hit on unregistered, female, “bandit” party entrants. And oh, smoke marijuana OTJ as well. Oh well.

And all the while, a party rages on the next block over. Meet the real neighbors of the NoPA:

The cool people in the ‘hood open their doors, the uncool people join task forces.